Betty Reid Soskin, once nation’s oldest park ranger, dies at 104
Betty Reid Soskin, the fountainhead of history who became the National Park Service’s oldest ranger when she retired a few years ago, has died at the age of 104.
Soskin’s family confirmed his death on December 21. Facebook postShe had spent more than a dozen years sharing her stories as a park ranger at Rosie the Riveter World War II Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond, California; With the intention of filling in the missing parts of the US narrative that only someone like him would know. They did not share the cause of death.
Born in Detroit in 1921, Soskin was the grandson of a former slave in Louisiana; According to “No Time to Lose: Betty Reid Soskin’s Urgent Message,” a documentary about her life produced in collaboration with The New York Times. Rosie the Riveter Foundation.
Soskin’s Cajun-Creole family moved to California six years later; Soskin grew up here in Richmond and worked as a file clerk at a segregated shipyard union hall that supported the U.S. effort in World War II. Decades of discrimination would strengthen his character and determination.
As the child of what he calls the “service workers generation” (that is, bellboys, laborers), Pullman porters and domestic servants – Soskin was well aware of racism and its effects. He said his job as a union clerk represented an advancement equivalent to being the first person in his family to go to university in more modern times.
“I wasn’t making beds in a hotel or taking care of white kids,” she said in “No Time to Lose.”
according to National Park FoundationSoskin was one of the country’s first Black record store owners. worked with Black Panthers She lives in California’s East Bay Valley and will eventually write a memoir, make spoken-word recordings, and write songs that reflect her emotional ups and downs; The latter, he said, was a way to maintain his mental health.
Betty Reid Soskin, the oldest full-time National Park Service ranger in the United States, poses for a portrait at her home in Richmond, California, one day before her 100th birthday on September 21, 2021. Soskin, Rosie the Riveter/II. She worked at the World War II Home Front National Historical Park, leading tours and answering questions about how Black women like herself supported the U.S. war effort despite the challenges of racism. During the war, Soskin worked as a file clerk at Boilermakers A-36, a segregated union hall in Richmond.
It wasn’t always easy to maintain hope, he said, but he often succeeded, encouraged by the crowds who took to American streets during the Black Lives Matter movement. 2020 shows.
“There are others working on the same thing,” he told USA TODAY in July 2020. “And one of us will make it one day. The people on the streets are multiracial now, and that’s different. That means the problem for me, as a Black person, no longer exists. It includes everyone now.”
In 2015, Soskin National Christmas Tree Lighting He introduced President Barack Obama at the ceremony at the White House Ellipse. Meeting the Obamas was “the highlight of my life,” he said.
In 2007, when she was in her mid-80s, Soskin became a National Park ranger and educated visitors about the contributions of Black women to World War II against segregation.
“I feel like I’ve lived my life to the fullest,” he said. “I have no regrets. There is nothing I feel like I left unfinished. I feel like I lived my life and lived every minute of it.”
Contributor: Fall School Student, USA TODAY
This article first appeared on USA TODAY: Betty Reid Soskin: Nation’s oldest park ranger dies at 104
